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TiVo announces Roamio DVR line: a four-tuner cord-cutting dream for $199

TiVo announces Roamio DVR line: a four-tuner cord-cutting dream for $199

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Live TV and Netflix all in a single box

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TiVo roamio lineup cropped
TiVo roamio lineup cropped

It's been leaked for a while, but TiVo just officially announced the Roamio DVR lineup, which replaces the Premiere. it's a hefty set of upgrades: all the new models feature a faster processor, at least four tuners, an RF remote, a reworked Netflix app that's much faster, and support for the DIAL protocol used in the Chromecast for streaming from Netflix and YouTube on mobile devices. You'll get all that in the base model Roamio, which costs $199 and features four tuners that work with an antenna or Cablecard, 500GB of storage good for 75 hours of recording, and built-in Wi-Fi — an odd thing to call out in 2013, but a first for TiVo. If you're a cord-cutter who wants local TV and you're willing to pay TiVo's $14.99 / month service fee, that's pretty attractive — and pretty much your only option now that Boxee TV has been killed by Samsung.

Cable customers will probably want to step up to the $399 Roamio Plus, which only works with Cablecards and offers six tuners, a 1TB hard drive good for 150 hours of recording, and a built-in TiVo Stream that lets you stream shows to iOS devices on your home Wi-Fi. (A forthcoming update will let you stream when you're on other Wi-Fi networks this fall, with mobile network support coming later.) The $599 flagship Roamio Pro offers the same feature list but steps up storage to 3TB that lets you record 450 hours of programming.

Again, you'll have to pay an additional $14.99 per month to use the TiVo service, or pay a flat $499 fee per box for lifetime service. That means none of this comes cheap, but if you're unhappy with your current cable box they're definitely worth a look.

Check out our full review of the TiVo Roamio Pro right here